Opinion Pieces

The University of California, deservedly so, is seen as one of the finest educational systems in the world. But even as it pursues enlightenment inside its classrooms, UC fosters a bureaucracy defined by inefficiency, secrecy and bloat.

The Bee’s recent editorial on Aerojet Rocketdyne’s decision to eliminate 1,100 jobs in Sacramento and create 800 jobs in Alabama reminds us that manufacturers have choices where to invest and create good jobs and poses an important question: what is the state’s plan for attracting and retaining middle-class jobs in California?

President Trump is bewildered. He doesn’t know what to make of California and its resistance to his policies. He thinks we’re “out of control.” Threatening a collective punishment on the entire state, he vows to take away federal funding if we don’t fall into line.

Powerful water board picking on little guy (East Bay Times guest commentary)
By Jeff Denham, Cathleen Galgiani, Adam Gray and Bob ElliottEast Bay Times My Word
Posted: 05/09/16, 5:57 PM PDT|Updated: on 05/09/2016
The State Water Resources Control Board has tried for too long to bully the Byron-Bethany Irrigation District (BBID), and we've had enough. It's time the board's misguided case against BBID ends and remove the regulatory limbo the farmers within BBID currently face.

For far too long, our society failed to confront the realities of human trafficking in the sex trade.

When a young runaway turned to prostitution to survive, we saw it as a sad consequence of her decision to leave home. If she was an adult, we chalked it up to a shadowy business deal, the oldest of commerce between a willing seller and a willing buyer.

Most of the time, we take our leaps of faith without ever thinking about them.

We walk into a restaurant assuming it’s a safe place to eat, that a public health inspector, on our behalf, has been there first. We do the same as we step aboard an aircraft or ride the elevator to our high-rise office downtown, which happens to straddle an earthquake fault. In our public spaces, we count on the advance guard of government to keep us out of harm’s way.

California is a world leader in high-tech, agriculture, entertainment and green energy. We have a world-class university system, an economy that ranks consistently in the world’s top 10, and a climate in some regions that rivals Mediterranean countries.

But taxes on our hardest working families are high too. And the burden those taxes place on people of modest means pushes too many of them on to taxpayer funded social services. I think the best way to lower those taxpayer costs is to lower the number of people who need those services.

In your editorial dated April 28, the Record stated “it is time to bring in an independent agency to investigate all the facts around the handling of these remains”. I completely agree. That is why I am calling for a thorough public review of all the files, records and communications relating to the cases of Joann Hobson, Chevelle Wheeler, Phillip Martin, Kimberly Billy and Cynthia Vanderheiden.

California is esteemed for many things, but few are as iconic as our "Happy Cows." Few are as treasured as the "grown and produced in California" labels that proudly represent the family farms that helped shape our state's cultural and economic foundations.